An eight-year reign of Republican dominance and political muscle in this state came to an end Tuesday when Democrat Tony Evers defeated GOP Gov. Scott Walker, the central figure in Wisconsin politics for more than a decade.

On a night when Democrats retook the U.S. House and both parties piled up striking wins and equally striking losses, voters in Wisconsin turned the page on one of the nation's best-known and most polarizing governors.

They did so by a very small margin, when a late tally of absentee ballots from Milwaukee County put the race out of reach for Walker. In the other marquee race in Wisconsin, Democratic U.S. Senate incumbent Tammy Baldwin won her own re-election bid handily against Republican Leah Vukmir.

The most arresting features of Evers' win and Walker's loss were massive Democratic landslides in Dane and Milwaukee counties, the two big blue bastions that delivered far higher margins for Democrats than they did four years earlier.

Democrats won Dane County in the 2014 governor's race by some 102,000 votes; they won the county Tuesday by more than 150,000 votes and 50 points. Democrats won Milwaukee County by just under 100,000 votes in the 2014 governor's race; they won it by almost 140,000 votes in the 2018 race for governor, based on unofficial returns.

Turnout in Wisconsin was remarkable across the state: more than 2.6 million people voted, far more than in any past midterm, more than in the 2012 recall election, and equal to roughly 59 percent of the state's voting-age population. That is more than the turnout rate that many states achieved in the 2016 presidential race.

Across the nation, voters delivered their midterm verdicts Tuesday on a president they elected two years ago, Donald Trump, and his party's control of Congress.

It was a good night for Democrats nationally, but it fell short of their highest hopes and was punctuated by some major disappointments. It was not a tsunami. Democrats captured the U.S. House. They lost ground in the Senate in a year when many contests were fought on very Republican turf. They made inroads in races for governor but failed to capture huge contests in Florida and Ohio.

The results around the country appeared to reflect growing geographic and demographic divides, between metropolitan and rural, and voters with and without college degrees.

Walker's contest was one of the most closely watched nationally, featuring a one-time national star of the party, whose bid for the presidency shot out of the gate in 2015 before it was eclipsed by Trump.

Exit polls showed Walker lost ground with at least two key groups of voters compared with his 2014 re-election victory. One was independents. Walker had won independents in each of his three statewide victories, including the recall, by margins ranging from 9 to 14 points. But in the 2018 exit poll, he was trailing among independents by 7 points.

A second group was college graduates. Walker won voters with college degrees by 1 point in 2014, according to the exit poll that year. He was losing them by 13 points this year.

Walker was winning men and losing women by high single digits, according to the exit poll — which is a smaller gender gap than in 2014 when Walker defeated Democrat Mary Burke.

Walker won the great majority of the state's counties. But his margins were smaller this time in the suburban base counties outside Milwaukee, such as Waukesha.

The exit poll suggested that roughly equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats voted.

This was a midterm election fight waged in a strong economy but also a shrill, overheated and bitter political climate, generating huge turnouts in many places.

In Wisconsin, a state Trump had carried by less than a percentage point in 2016, Baldwin cruised to a commanding victory over Vukmir in the Senate contest, piling up landslides in the state's bluest places while also winning a number of counties carried by Trump in 2016.

Democrats failed in their bid to pick up two U.S. House seats in Wisconsin, but the Republican makeup of both districts — the 1st represented by House Speaker Paul Ryan and the 6th represented by Glen Grothman — made a partisan change unlikely.

The brightest story for Democrats nationally was the takeover of the U.S. House, a final setback to Ryan, the Wisconsin lawmaker who is retiring after 20 years in Washington.

At the same time, Democrats lost at least three Senate incumbents in states carried easily by Trump in 2016.

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Election Inspector Sue Barker (left) helped Mark Carothers (right) to find his address to place him in right ward, as he registered to vote in the Town of Merton at the Stone Bank Fire Station. Michael Sears / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Election Inspector Sue Barker (left) helped John Schwartz (right) to find his address to place him in right ward, as he registered to vote in the Town of Merton at the Stone Bank Fire Station. Michael Sears / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Charles Henery (center left) helped Christine Gronewold (center right) in the voting line as she had forgotten her cane and need a bit of help getting in from her car to the voting table and back out in Delafield at Christ the King Lutheran Church. Michael Sears / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

People catch up with friends and neighbors as they arrive and leave the polling place in the Town of Merton at the Stone Bank Firehouse. The fire truck is an antique in the lobby of the building. Michael Sears / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Tyler Been holds his daughter Margaret Been age 10 months as he feeds his ballot into the election machine to be read in Delafield at Christ the King Lutheran Church. Michael Sears / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Waiting for the clock to strike 7 a.m. , voters wait in line to cast their ballots Tuesday, November 6, 2018 at the Calumet Town Hall in Fond du Lac County, Wis. About 20 people were waiting for the polls to open. Mark Hoffman / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Caroline Polk, of Milwaukee, holds her sleeping 1-year-old daughter Jamyra Henderson as she waits for her husband Jonathan Henderson to vote at the Boys and Girls Club in Sherman Park in Milwaukee. Mike De Sisti/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Voters wait in line at voting district 10 at Calvary Lutheran Church. The mid-term voting kept poll workers busy as voters waited in lines at most polling stations in Oshkosh. Joe Sienkiewicz/USA Today NETWORK-Wisconsin

Poll workers, Lavina Bufkin (from left) and Jimmie Qualls, right, register voters at Sherman Multiculural School in Milwaukee on Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2018. This is Qualls' 50th year work the polls. She said the first year she volunteered she was pregnant with her first child in 1968. Angela Peterson, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Alisha Nelson of West Allis proudly holds her "I Voted" sticker after voting at West Allis Central High School. Citizens across the area cast their vote for the midterm election on Tuesday. Mike De Sisti, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Sabrina Hudson (left) checks in with poll worker Pat Tiarks in Butler. Hudson, a new resident of Butler, registered to vote in today's mid-term elections. She was among the many who got up early to cast their ballots. Angela Peterson/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Dawn Crawford, a long-time resident of Butler, gives thumbs up after casting her ballot as the first resident to vote at the Butler Village Hall. For the last 10 years, Crawford has been the first resident in line to vote. It has become somewhat of a competition and tradition between she and some of her neighbors. Angela Peterson/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Audrey Ziegler, 6, is called by her mother, Jacquelyn, after saying hello to poll workers Kathy Eusslin (center) and Deputy Clerk Carolyn Jahnke at the village hall in Butler. Audrey was with her parents, who were among the early morning voters. Angela Peterson/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Chief Elections Inspector Alan Stewart (left) talks with Mike Slowinski and his son Abraham as voters cast their ballots at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Appleton. Wm. Glasheen/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

Baldwin’s Senate victory followed a very powerful historical pattern. Incumbent senators in the opposition party — the party that doesn’t occupy the White House — don't often lose. It hasn’t happened in Wisconsin in 56 years. These senators enjoy the upside of incumbency — money, name recognition, political experience and skills — without the downside, which is the baggage of being in power.

Baldwin easily outspent Vukmir, but she was also the target of lots of early attack ads. She won Tuesday by a bigger margin — around 10 points — than other recent U.S. Senate victors in this evenly divided state. She ran hard on the Democrats' biggest weapon in 2018 — the issue of health care. She also effectively mixed in populist themes (like "Buy American") and parochial issues, like dairy.

According to the exit poll, among white voters, Baldwin won women with college degrees by 33 points while losing men without college degrees by 13. Similar gender and education gaps surfaced in races across the country. In the governor's race, among white voters, Walker lost college women by 21 points but won non-college men (a much larger group) by 20.

When Wisconsin elected Republican Ron Johnson and Baldwin in consecutive elections in 2010 and 2012, it gave the state the "oddest" political odd couple in the Senate, with Johnson well to the right and Baldwin well to the left of most of their peers. That might have seemed like a fluke. But now Wisconsin has re-elected each of them.

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